Texans-Colts post game thoughts from your good friend Steph

There is nothing I say right now after this loss to the Colts that will sit right with you. You can rationalize, well, maybe this means the Colts win next week against the Gabbert-led Jaguars and don’t get Andrew Luck. I don’t pretend to know what would end up being for the best.

This is where my head is at:

1. Hugs to all, (in the mom way). <<<<<VIRTUAL CONSOLATION HUG, not nearly as good as celebration hug>>>>>

2. MacGyvering. When I heard that Matt Schaub had a serious foot injury, I grieved. The Texans had such a great balanced team, and I liked how they matched up against a lot of teams. Because even though some people didn’t care for his quarterbacking, the offense under him was outrageously efficient.

I think some fan (maybe media) expectations are out of whack. As I discussed before, we are experiencing the new normal, a team having to be MacGyvering wins with a back up back up quarterback. The team that lost to the Panthers and Colts is not that different than the won that beat the Falcons and Bengals. Other than being more injured at key spots (losing Andre the second time after he contributed 100 yards to a win; Owen Daniels with a iffy knee). The difference is a few plays, timely or untimely penalties.

The Atlanta and Bengals games could have easily been losses but for one play. Wouldn’t change the Texans character or effort one bit.

For me, and the new normal, I am just riding this season out, hoping for a few more bounces to go the Texans way (hello bizarre highlight Jacoby Jones catch), and to have to scrape ugly wins.

In other words, I do not find the Texans losing to the Colts to be shameful, pathetic, embarrassing, rotten, whatever disparaging descriptive people want to use. Result bums me out but they are the same team whether they could have stopped that final drive or not. For the Texans to win against any team given the injury to Schaub, they are playing and coaching their *** off and hoping for some breaks. I see plenty of effort from this team, but some of the breaks they got in their Yates’ wins, they did not get in their Yates’ losses.

There’s been so much discussion about can the Yates’ led Texans win a playoff game, I think some people underplay how difficult it is for this team to win against any NFL team. Look at what roster they ran out there. Look at it. Maybe it is hard to read with all the duct tape and safety pins holding it together. Much easier to play defense when your offense is a third down machine that stays on the field. The Texans got into some very unfortunate down and distance situations on 3rd down, on the road, against Freeney/Mathis, and only converted 1/10 3rd downs.

Hopefully, they can use the time before the next game to get more healthy, buy some Super Glue or something.

3. Substitute expletives. Cussing is against the Terms of Service at this newspaper blog. If you have kids, you can’t cuss in front of them so sometimes parents make up substitutes. I suggest leaving one in the comments reflecting your disappointment in the result of this game. I will say, “Poop on a stick!” For some reason that sounds funny to me, and actually for a substitute expletive accurately reflects my feeling on the evening’s events.

5. Avoid all media. It’s Christmas time and/or the holiday of your choice. Celebrate it appropriately. Perhaps consuming large quantities of baked goods are in order, preferably ones with chocolate. That usually makes me feel better. I suggest avoiding all forms of media. Including this one if what I am saying is raising your blood pressure at all.

6. Enjoy the ride the best you can. With football and with life. Clearly the Texans have a difficult circumstance, but so did the Rockets in their championship years where they went from “Choke” to Clutch. Not saying that’s going to happen here, but sports is the best reality programming on the planet and you just never know. From Walk Hard, The Dewey Cox Story…some of the best comedy is mixed with philosophy. See e.g. Monty Python, some Mel Brooks, old Woody Allen. Let’s just enjoy the ride where ever it takes us, even if sometimes the journey is substitute or actual expletive inducing at times.